Posts tagged with "history"

On Thursday 6 June 2019, the 31st edition of Le Dîner in Blanc de Paris will take place in one of the most prestigious locations of the French capital.

Last year, several thousand international guests attended this wonderful event where the elegance of everyone’s white outfits gave the evening a magical and universal character. Watch the 2018 video here.Again, this year, guests are invited from every continent, 30 countries and 90 cities around the world to share this beautiful dinner party infused with elegance, joy and friendship.

Along with American, Canadian, English and Australian guests, whose grand-parents landed 75 years ago exactly on June 6, 1944: D-Day, attendees will participate in the remembrance of this great moment of sacrifice and fraternity. Some of the world’s most important dignitaries will also come to Normandy and to Paris to commemorate this historic anniversary.

Le Dîner en Blanc brings a lot of happiness to everyone. Indeed, for a few hours, it’s a kind of magic that envelops the event, making guests more stunning, cities more beautiful and the future much brighter…. In their best attire and their most joyous mood, guests are reminded of the delight it is to share this amazing evening with strangers that can become friends in an instant.

Close your eyes and immerse yourself in the feeling brought by thousands of dazzling and sparkling lights, making your heart sing… once again.

Nearly 500 supporters of the U.S. Soccer Foundation came together at the Banc of California Stadium in Los Angeles – on the pitch of Major League Soccer’s LAFC – Monday evening to commemorate the organization’s achievements of growing the game and providing youth recreation opportunities in underserved communities throughout its 25-year history.

The U.S. Soccer Foundation’s 25th anniversary celebration featured many of the women and men who have been a part of the organization throughout its history and supporters from the most storied soccer teams in American history, including members of the “‘99ers,” the World Cup-winning 1999 U.S. Women’s National Team. The Foundation and its supporters also used the 25th anniversary celebration to highlight the contributions of five national leaders who are bringing soccer to underserved communities nationwide.

“We’ve been honored to play a role in the phenomenal growth of the game in the United States,” said Ed Foster-Simeon, President & CEO of the U.S. Soccer Foundation. “Sport has existed for millennia because there’s a payoff for everyone who plays – not just those who make it to the very top. Mastery of soccer skills builds confidence and self-esteem. The game teaches teamwork and leadership. We look forward to the next 25 years as we continue to make soccer everyone’s game.”Award Recipients

Visionary Award

Target has been a leader in corporate responsibility and community-building for years, uplifting neighborhoods nationwide by setting the bar for investing in communities. In 2017, the company made a $14 million commitment to youth soccer to bring the game to more kids and families across the country. This investment included the launch of a grant program to provide local organizations with funding for player and field equipment as well as training for volunteer coaches. In its work with the U.S. Soccer Foundation, Target exhibits exemplary leadership and dedication to the Foundation’s mission to increase access to the sport in underserved communities. Target was the first to make a significant contribution and fund the creation of 100 mini-pitches with the Foundation, providing safe places to play nationwide.

Impact Award

Major League Soccer has been a leading force behind the growth of the game in the United States. Founded in 1993 as part of the U.S. bid to host the 1994 FIFA World Cup, MLS debuted its first season in 1996 with 10 teams. The league excelled in growing its fan base and today 24 teams play in the U.S. and Canada. In addition to growing the sport professionally, the organization has made a significant commitment to addressing important social issues and enriching the lives of those in need through MLS WORKS, the league’s social responsibility platform. MLS has invested millions of dollars for more than a decade to improve the quality, safety, and accessibility of the sport in communities nationwide.

Game Changer Award

Founded in 2012 with its inaugural playing season in 2013, the National Women’s Soccer League, LLC operates the only Division 1 professional women’s soccer league in the United States and features the most prolific domestic and international players from around the globe. Guided by the league’s core principles, NWSL is committed to building on its foundation to promote women’s soccer in the United States and provide a home to the world’s top athletes at the highest level, while inspiring the next generation of female athletes.

Trailblazer Award

The 1999 U.S. Women’s National Team will forever have an iconic place in soccer. Aside from being one of the best teams to ever play, the team carved out an important place in sports history by solidifying a foundation for women in soccer. The sheer talent, energy, and determination the ‘99ers encompassed when they clinched the World Cup remains one of the single most inspiring moments in soccer today. Players from this historic team continue to find ways to give back to their communities, broadening access to the game and continuing to energize people around the sport. As trailblazers, this team has served as excellent ambassadors for the game and role models for youth.

Inspiration Award

The players of the 2019 U.S. Women’s National Team have never disappointed. They will defend their FIFA Women’s World Cup title in France this summer. They represent the latest iteration in an evolution of greatness, with the U.S. Women’s National Team considered the most successful in the world due to their consistent high standard of excellence, three World Cup titles, four Olympic gold medals, and other competitive awards. The team has inspired countless young women and men to dream big and believe in themselves through a shared vision to increase excitement about soccer. Their impressive talent, combined with their teamwork and community engagement, highlight the best of this sport and showcase the critical skills young people can learn on the field and apply in their lives.

Platinum sponsors of the event included adidas, the Britton Family Foundation, Los Angeles Football Club at Banc of California Stadium, Major League Soccer, Target, Telemundo Deportes, and NBC Sports.

TRUCK NIGHT IN AMERICA: BATTLE OF THE BUSCH BROTHERSA special episode of HISTORY channel’s Truck Night has two special guests! NASCAR Champions Kyle and Kurt Busch bring their driving skills — and trucks – to win $10,000 for charity. But these professional race car drivers first need to compete against amateur drivers and survive the Car Pull and Travel Trailer for a shot at the Green Hell.TRUCK NIGHT IN AMERICA makes history with the toughest truck obstacle course ever built. America and trucks go together, and since 1925 when the first American factory-produced truck rolled off the line, American owners have been devising ingenious ways to make them faster, stronger, and more powerful.On TRUCK NIGHT IN AMERICA, five truck owners compete in a series of grueling challenges that test their craftsmanship and driving ability in ways never before seen. The challenges culminate in The Green Hell, a 3-mile obstacle course which includes challenges that send trucks flying off jumps, over a mountain of crushed cars and even through a snake-infested swamp. Helping them along the way are four experts: Desert racing champ “Pistol” Pete Sohren; extreme sports pioneer and dirt track racer, Glen Plake; truck builder and master fabricator, Abe Wine and rock crawling champion and master fabricator, Rob “Bender” Park. In each episode of this self-contained competition, five trucks will enter, but only one can win, driving away with $10,000 and the title of “Truck Night Champion.”PREMIERE: Thursday, February 21 at 10PM ET/PT

The Miami Design District store hosted a private launch preview event of the highly-anticipated collection where guests were given an exclusive look at Virgil’s first collection before it was made available in 30 select stores globally on Friday, January 18. Drawing inspiration from “The Wizard of Oz”, the unique design ofa yellow pathway led up to the entrance of the boutique, perfectly in tune with the vibrant colors from the collection.

Scheduled eventsshowcase local chefs’ artistry, indigenous Florida Keys ingredients, fine wines from around the world and intriguing food-related adventures.

The festival officially begins with the Conch Kick-off Party at 5 p.m. Wednesday, Jan. 23, saluting the unique food culture of Key West — whose native residents proudly call themselves “conchs” after the mollusk used in many island dishes. Seafood and Cuban-influenced treats by Chef David Fuhrman of Great Events Catering, fine winesandentertainment by The Fabulous Spectrelles characterize the gala in the garden of Key West’s Oldest House Museum,322 Duval St.

Friday’s schedule stars the “Sunset on the Ingham” Grand Tasting aboard the historic U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Samuel D. Ingham, launched in 1936 and now a military museum moored at Key West’s Truman Waterfront Park. Attendees can enjoy notable vintages, island-inspired light bites from Small Chef at Large Catering, entertainment by jazz singer Libby York and a chance to enjoy Key West’s world-renowned sunset from the deck of the venerable vessel.

Festival attendees can find a mile of temptations Saturday, Jan. 26, at Old Town Uncorked X 10, a sipping and shopping stroll down Key West’s renowned Duval Street. Attractions at the 2-5 p.m. event include “intoxicating” forays into galleries and boutiques.

Saturday evening, a paella cook-off is to take place at the Truman Little White House,111 Front St., where former President Harry Truman spent nearly six months while in office. The annual event supports the preservation of the property — now Florida’s only presidential museum — and includes unlimited wine tasting, cigars and live music.

The festival also features an interactive blind tasting event focusing on Key West’s culinary culture and history. Staged at a secret location by event designerFrancesca DeFranchis,the guided sensory experience features a six-course tasting menu and nine wines.

Other festival attractions include a tropical garden tour and tasting, the “Red Socks at Rock House” spectacular featuring Eduardo’s Table, a lavish shrimp feast in the Key West Historic Seaport and the “Brunch Bucket List” series.

The Mob Museum, The National Museum of Organized Crime and Law Enforcement located in downtown Las Vegas, this year launched “Organized Crime Today,” a technology-driven exhibition dedicated to present-day topics. Featuring artifacts as well as fully interactive, 17-foot-long touch screen wall, the exhibition enables Museum guests to take a deep dive into the Global Networks of organized crime operating around the world in the 21st century. This elaborate exhibition launched in February of 2018, along with three other brand-new permanent exhibitions the award-winning, American Alliance of Museums-accredited institution debuted this year.

While most of the Museum covers the intriguing history of organized crime and its battle with law enforcement through decades, Organized Crime Today addresses contemporary iterations of this illegal activity. The Global Networks touchscreen wall elaborates on contemporary crime rackets—illegal enterprises that span the globe and profit off everything from drug and human trafficking to product counterfeiting, money laundering and cybercrime. The exhibit addresses the most prominent organized crime groups active in the world today and explores the complexities of organized crime with up-to-the-minute developments pulled from the day’s headlines.

For example, a recent addition to the Global Networks interactive wall spotlights the wildlife smuggling trade in Cambodia, where customs officials recently confiscated 3.5 tons of African elephant ivory—the largest cache of the smuggled contraband ever found in the country. Smugglers have been using Cambodia as a transit hub to feed the demand for ivory in China—which banned ivory sales in 2018—and Vietnam, where it is used in carved artwork, chopsticks and jewelry.

In addition, the screen offers the ability for experts around the world to videoconference into the Museum remotely and offer their analysis and insights into organized crime around the world. These programs are included in the price of general admission and offer Museum visitors the opportunity not only to hear from these experts, but also the chance to ask questions.

Museum visitors encounter other technology-enabled, interactive experiences as well. A Use of Force Training experience uses airsoft versions of police-style handguns and responsive video scenarios to demonstrate the training law enforcement officers receive regarding the use of deadly force. Meanwhile, in the Museum’s Crime Lab, visitors can learn about cause of death investigation with the assistance of life-sized, digitally generated subjects viewed on an interactive, touch-screen “autopsy table.”

Media attending CES 2019 who wish to visit the Museum should send their request tochristina@thevoxagency.com. For more information about the Museum and its Organized Crime Today – Global Networks exhibition, click here.

It’s not just men who love adventure and trailblazing into the unknown. Yet for some reason it’s men who’ve gained the notoriety of being explorers and adventurers, with the history books filled with pages of their exploits. But women aren’t the wallflowers they’ve been represented as through the years. Women, in both past and the present, have traveled from one end of the globe to the other using horses, cars, ships, planes, and trains. Today women are celebrating women…and all their accomplishments. And why wouldn’t being pioneers of travel be on the list of these achievements?

Most of these female explorers are forgotten when we look at those who have travelled into new territories and gone on amazing adventures around the world. Yet women have been travelling for thousands of years, with evidence going back as far as the 4th century. The earliest mention of a woman traveling is from 381 A.D. when the Abbess of Egeria travelled on foot up Mount Sinai. Her pilgrimage diary outlines her thoughts and experiences from those many years ago.

In the 19th century, wealthy Victorian women began to travel for many reasons, both personal and political. Still others travelled to locations around the world where they felt they could make a difference, engaging in the missionary work that men didn’t have time for. Many women travelled so they could research other cultures, writing books about their adventures. And not only did women travel to see the world, many are known for their efforts to advance feminism, leading the way for other women to follow in their footsteps.

From 1871 to 1885 Marianne North, a British naturalist and painter, travelled to six different continents where she painted flowers and plants. She voyaged by ship to South America, Asia, and Africa…travelling on her own when she couldn’t find a “satisfactory companion” to pursue her passion of painting the different flora around the world. Her paintings and letters to friends about her travel experiences are a great narrative of what travel was like for a solo female traveller.

Another well known explorer in the early 1900s was Gertrude Bell, who travelled all around Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. As a writer and an archaeologist, her books give women today a clear picture of what it was like to travel to foreign countries.

“All the earth is seamed with roads, and all the sea is furrowed with the tracks of ships, and over all the roads and all the waters a continuous stream of people passes up and down – travelling, as they say, for their pleasure. What is it, I wonder, that they go out to see?” – Gertrude Bell.

It’s easy to see that women throughout history have travelled for the same reason we do today – for adventure and to satisfy our curiosity to see the world. Spread across the years, we’re highlighting seven of the most influential and trailblazing women in travel. With their unique backgrounds, and their drive and determination, they’re a true inspiration for women around the globe.

A Broadway actor leapt over a barricade to the front of the United Nations Assembly and interrupted the proceedings with a demand for peace and world law to protect human rights for all.

“And if you won’t do it, step aside and a Peoples World Assembly will arise from our own ranks to do it,” shouted actor Garry Davis, a war veteran and former bomber pilot.

UN security forces grabbed Davis, but as they tussled with him, war-hero Robert Sarrazac leapt up on the opposite balcony and shouted in French: “In the name of the people of the world not represented here, I interrupt!”

Other protesters scattered among the audience leapt up to continue the speech: “The nations you represent divide us and lead us to the abyss of total war.”

Delegates were shocked–until it became clear this was a coordinated action. Then many applauded and joined in.

On December 9, outside the UN, 20,000 supporters rallied to demand that world law be passed to protect human rights for all.

The December 9th rally was a historic first, in that it occurred seventy years ago today, and was part of the massive people-power movement which helped trigger the unanimous passage of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) the very next day: December 10th, 1948.

In a clip released to the press at https://vimeo.com/297521680 one of the protesters, Pierre Bergé, said the interruption of the United Nations General Assembly in Paris was planned and executed by “very famous writers” including Albert Camus.

Bergé called the disruption “a political comedy” and said it was designed to give people hope for a better way to run our world. “We have to dream, because the only way to catch the reality is to dream.”

The hidden history of how one man’s bold action helped spark a massive movement on the eve of this great leap forward for humanity is told in a forthcoming film “The World is My Country.”

Here is an excerpt:

Because this 70th anniversary event is so relevant to the hot-button issues in today’s world, the filmmakers are making a special password-protected preview version available online–for one week only. To sign up for this advance preview click on this link and select “Free Preview.”

Los Angeles area media and others are invited to meet the director at a preview screening of the film December 8th at 6:30 PM at 3916 Sepulveda Blvd, Culver City 90230.

For more information about Garry and the passage of the UDHR see the article in the German magazine Spiegel.

Did you know the artisan sector is the second largest employer in the developing world? It’s true, and the majority of artisans are women who create handcrafted goods using traditional techniques passed down through generations.

Marketplace Africa, the ecommerce site created by Mall for Africa and powered by DHL, aims to put a global spotlight on these unique African-made products and their creators. 85% of the site’s goods are crafted by underrepresented female artisans from Nigeria, and soon Kenya and Rwanda, who can sell their handmade fashion, jewelry, home goods, and beauty products directly to the U.S. and consumers worldwide.

With Nigeria’s unemployment rate hovering at 14.2% and a staggering 89.5% of the country living in extreme poverty, it’s the female artisans who are making a positive impact on their country’s economy and future.

So this holiday season, why not gift different and buy global? Choose a Blingshiki, a modern twist on the classic Dashiki, adorned with sparkling embellishments, or grab a pair of colorful Zig sandals.

When you purchase authentic African clothing and handicrafts directly from Marketplace Africa, you’re not just buying something beautiful, you’re investing in artisans who weave their rich cultural traditions into soulful creations. Empowering female artisans and boosting their communities is the real beauty of shopping at Marketplace Africa. And that’s a holiday gift that’s priceless.

Democrat Krysten Sinema rode a wave of Maricopa County voters, as well as voters from her opponent Martha McSally’s congressional district in Tucson, to give her the edge and the eventual win for the Arizona U.S. Senate seat that was being vacated by Jeff Flake.

The Associated Press called the race for Sinema Monday night and McSally ceded, tweeting congratulations to Sinema.

Sinema will become the first woman in the state’s 106-year history to take a seat in the U.S. Senate.

So how did Sinema manage to win? She played towards the moderate Republican voters, the independent voters, and the suburban women, who were anxious about the polarizing politics in the era of President Donald Trump. That gave her the advantage in the urban areas of Arizona. It was too great for McSally to make up.

Sinema maintained that lead on Monday and grew even more with the latest batch of early ballots. With that, she defeated the Republicans’ hopes of maintaining the seat.